Category Archives: VBOE 2011-08-29

School consolidation would set up an artificial fiscal disaster that
could force the “unified” public school system to turn to private foundations
for funding, at the price of control of public education by private entities.
This is disaster capitalism, or the shock doctrine, right here in
Valdosta and Lowndes County.

“the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock”

She was writing mostly about wars, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters.
Locally here we haven’t had any of those.
But we may be about to create a disaster, a shock,
at the ballot box in November,
if voters fall for the school “unification” snake oil.

Perception (from the Latin perceptio, percipio) is the process of
attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing
and interpreting sensory information
– Wikipedia

I have sat on the sideline for a while on the issue of
consolidation. Perhaps I am still on the sideline since I am not going
to tell you how to vote. Regardless of the decision on November 8th I
will continue to support education in one or two systems. In any event
I feel compelled to at least provide some words for consideration.
Here is my perspective from the sideline.

Here’s a
video playlist
for the whole meeting: teacher hiring, board member training,
and a statement against school consolidation, with additional
comments by many citizens.
Many of these videos have already been published in the
VBOE 29 August 2011 category in this blog.

This is the clearest statement of the football argument I’ve heard.
This is the same speaker who already mentioned
quality of education, property taxes, and property values,
so this is just one argument among many.
The speaker is associated with FVCS, and if I went to VHS,
I’d know his name right away; I’m an LHS graduate.

The first thing they’ll do is sell that stadium.
They’d be crazy not to do….
They’re not going to pay upkeep on two stadiums.
Look at Tallahassee, Macon: all the schools play at one stadium….

…

Don’t let those people run the show.
Don’t let them take the power away from us.

…

If one day it makes good economic sense for y’all to
make the decision to sell that property to Valdosta State
and build another stadium and we can come out ahead,
I think that’s a great idea.

Like my granddaddy said, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

By “those people” I don’t think he means the Lowndes County Board
of Education; I think he was referring to CUEE.

Research quality of education, property taxes, and property values
after school consolidation, and you’ll find down, up, and down,
said this speaker.
Didn’t get his name; sorry.

I don’t have kids, but I have plenty of friends that do.
that are in Valdosta city school system,
and they like the direction that the school system is going.
They like the quality of education that their children are getting at this time.

My grandfather used to say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
It ain’t broke, so why are we going to let them try to fix it?

Do the research; I’ve done the research.
Do the research on other communities that have consolidated two systems.
When you get a big huge system, the quality of education goes down.
Check it out. Research it.

If TV cameras show up for football, why don’t they show up
“when the people come together on issues such as this,
not just black folk, not just white folk, but all Americans
are here tonight because of our concern”?

The school consolidation referendum is already having ill effects more than
two months before anybody gets to vote on it.
The Valdosta School Board has had to postpone further work planning
for a new elementary school.

However, since the referendum for consolidation made the ballot,
it would be impossible for us to sell bonds at this time.

because who would buy them, knowing the selling school board
might not exist come this November?
Or, if the consolidation referendum passes, for some unknown time
after that?
So the board decided to postpone even selecting an architect
until the consolidation question is resolved.

“It would be impossible for us to sell bonds at this time” —Dr. Cason @ VBOE 29 August 2011
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

CUEE has lost its framing. Nobody calls it “unification” but CUEE.
Everybody else calls it consolidation, same as for the last thirty years.
And Sam Allen is turning the tide against it.

Sam Allen, president of Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS)
and former Valdosta School Superintendent said:

I promised myself three years ago when I left this place,
that one thing I would never do,
and that would come and attend another board meeting.

He said he came for a good cause this time.

The CUEE group is calling this unification all of a sudden.
And I think that’s just a play on words, and a play on our intelligence.
Because for thirty years we’ve called this process consolidation.
Now all of a sudden we’re calling it unification.

We’re calling it unification because the only thing that we want to change
is the central office.
We want all the schools to remain the same.
The only thing we want to change is what goes on right here
at 1204 Williams Street.

Well if you’re going to unify a community, something has to change.
This group has failed to put together a plan that we can follow.

I didn’t catch his name, but he David Mullis talked about his children and said:

All of my children have fourished in the Valdosta School System.
…
The special ed program they have here is second to none.

Then he got to the night’s topic:

When I look at these things when people talk about consolidation,
I have to ask the question:
why do they want to consolidate two school systems?
The things that they say sound good.
I think everything they say would be agreab
What do they mean by them?
And I have a little bit of a problem;
whenever somebody wants to combine two groups together,
it almost looks like they want to control the whole.

And this little bombshell:

It seems like the group that is most pushing this thing
is referring to the Tennessee Hamilton County system,
which if you read their site, sounds like their statistics are good
and everything’s working good.
Except that there’s some data that came out a month ago
that says that they are,
the first time, the entire district is high priority.
…
That means they had two years of bad results.

Hamilton Co. TN is high priority school district @ VBOE 29 August 2011
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.